Listen Whackos, Fat-Bottomed Girls Make the Rocking World Go 'Round

Pooh knows what's up.

For the second time in less than a year, someone clearly suffering from a mental illness has made a snide comment about my weight. And I. Am. Done.

On a work trip to Chicago last spring, a panhandler approached me for money. I said no, he said, "Maybe you should think about losing some weight." Assface. I got super upset and anxious, didn't enjoy the rest of my trip to the Windy City, came home and lost 30 pounds.

Last night, I started a volunteer gig at a store that specializes in fair trade items. Some dude came in who thought he was Kenyan. (He was not Kenyan.) He had been thrown out of the store Saturday for being a problem and was angry with the woman training me, who had been the thrower-outer. He started out seeming harmless, but grew increasingly belligerent. Eventually, we had to close 30 minutes early to get him out of the store. We also had to call the police. But at one point, he looked at me and said, "You're twice her size and you're going to let her boss you around like that?"

Look, that I'm fat doesn't surprise me. I see myself in the mirror every day. But I don't know why people think they need to tell me about it. I don't look at short people and say "You're so short, you know. Maybe you should grow." I don't tell thin people they should eat more so they gain some weight. I've never told a brunette how much prettier she'd be if she were a redhead.

Last night's events didn't upset me in the "I feel worthless and I want to cry and eat cookies until I feel better, but oh man these cookies will make me fatter" sense of the word. Instead, it pissed me off. Even though this dude had problems, there's no excuse for making snide comments about peoples' size. We are not a cookie-cutter world, as much as popular culture would like us to be. I come from big people, conditioned to work hard as farmers. I've been trying to lose weight much of my life, with mixed results. I've been ridiculed, belittled and made to feel like I'm somehow less vital, important, interesting and intelligent than thin people.

None of that shit is true. I'm fat, but I'm also a slew of other adjectives: smart, funny, short, arthritic, hilarious, dramatic, anxious, loud, gregarious, boisterous, caring, sensitive, hungry, inquisitive, curious and tired. Fat is just part of what makes me me, folks. One small adjective in the host of adjectives describing the amazing entity that is Yours Truly.

I'm on a bit of a Queen bender these days, and if Freddy Mercury is to be believed, fat-bottomed girls make the rocking world go 'round. I don't have a lot of junk in the trunk, but I am wide to the side. If you can't appreciate that, keep your mouth shut and leave me the hell alone.